Falling from the Sky
by Ingram
Summary: On a quiet night in Manhattan, Demona quite literally drops from the sky, bloody, battered and unconscious. Where did she come from and, more importantly, when?


A/N-Oi! Humie! I see your zombies and raise you the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium.

A/N-Anybody confused about what exactly I'm talking about? Check out the Lexicanum for further reading. Try looking up 'gargoyles'.

They're…a bit different than the ones we know and love.

(Actually very.)

(Bloody _Tyranids_.)

And then work from there.

_In the far future of the 41__st__ Millennium, mankind has reached to the heavens. For centuries, humans have been colonizing millions of worlds in the far reaches of the void, spreading out from the ground of Holy Terra to the farthest arms of the galactic rim. _

_With the zeal of the fanatic, these holdings of the God-Emperor of Mankind are warded by the mighty chapters of the Space Marines, immortal warriors capable of reducing entire star systems to ruin. _

_Their comrades in arms, the Imperial Guard, numbering in the trillions, battle any enemy with an unstoppable wave of armor and flesh, crushing all who stand before them no matter the cost, while the Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus maintain the ancient and crumbling technologies of the Empire and from the shadows, a war is waged behind them all by the grim forces of the Imperial Inquisition, locked in a continual war against foes whose foul evil defies description. _

_But humanity is not alone amongst the stars._

_The Imperium of Man is menaced on all fronts by the xeno; the Tau, calm, unyielding and insidious in their attempts to expand their empire by subversion and conquest, bringing their philosophy of unity and control to all at the barrel of a plasma rifle. _

_The insidious forces of the Eldar, vile pirates and raiders who go to any means to propagate their ancient, dying race; _

_The nearly unstoppable Necrons, a vast army of metal automatons unyielding in their mission to purge the galaxy any and all forms of life. _

_The endless swarms of the Tyranids, swarms of ravenous monstrosities capable of blotting out the stars with their endless numbers, sweeping through the galaxy in vast hive fleets and consuming all they behold. _

_And then there are the Orks; green skinned killers who live to fight, whose greatest delight is to plunge world after world into never ending warfare, who, if united, could overwhelm all opposition and crush the galaxy beneath their iron-shod boots, if only they would stop fighting amongst themselves._

_This is not a tale of that far time, however. _

_This is a tale about a time when the legends of the dim, forgotten past met with the nightmares of the grim dark future._

It seemed like the beginning of a pleasant night at Castle Wyvern; as the sun sank down below the far horizon, its last warm rays gave way to the bright nights lights of the city that never sleeps; even though the lights of the stars above shown bright, the man made lights radiated upwards at them with the artificial glow that seemed to equal that of the distant suns.

A cool wind whipped through the ancient battlements, seeping in through cracks that even the most careful, and well paid, engineers couldn't find and seal, but this was of little concern at the moment; even though the castle perched atop one of the tallest buildings in the world, the fall winds that were not so cool that they could only be a warning of the winter winds that would whip in a few months, bringing outdoor life in even this tough town to a virtual standstill.

As night set in, the gargoyles awoke.

The Manhattan Clan, among the last of their species, roared their greeting to the eternal darkness they inhabited, their piercing cries echoing over the stones walls of their ancient home. The seven gargoyles erupted from their stone prisons, shaking off bits of granite as they stretched and flexed their muscled bodies. Then, almost as one, they leapt from their perches and flew to the more shielded expanse of the walled bailey below them; they were but recently returned to their home, and they had agreed to not linger on their exposed tower for too long.

The lord of the house had a somewhat…checkered past with his newly returned tenants.

The clans leader, a noble warrior named Goliath, folded his wings across his massive chest and, strangely enough, lavender chest. He looked out on his clan proudly, and they smiled back at him. He paused a moment to ruffle his daughters hair before speaking to the others. Angela grinned as Broadway swept to her side to stroke the few errant strands of hair that had fallen over her face back into place. Brooklyn, Goliaths second, glowered darkly at them fro a moment before sighing in defeat and turning to speak to Lexington, an olive skinned web winged gargoyles, whose small size and wide eyes hide a keen intellect. Hudson bent down to release Bronx, the clans watch beast. The massive gargoyle dog sniffed the air once, before running off into the darkened doorway ofone of the stout towers that overlooked the bailey, baying excitedly. The reason behind this became clear a few moments later, when Elisa Maza, the most stalwart ally the clan had ever had, and the beloved of Goliath himself, strode out of the tower, the watch beast at her side, tongue lolling from one corner of his mouth as Elisa scratched behind his ears as they walked to the clan.

Goliath smiled wider, his face even threatening to break into a grin. He raised his hand in greeting to his beloved, and a warm greeting graced his lips-moments before there was a loud crashing noise a bright flash of red light, and the greeting died in his throat as a wildly shouting creature was deposited by a crackling ball of red energy forty feet above the castle. It promptly began plummeting to earth, smacking into the earth with a loud *crunch*, bouncing off the ground several time and coming to a stop before a now speechless Elisa.

. Goliath was the first to break out of the stunned silence;

"Elisa! Get back!" He shouted, as he bounded across the courtyard to snatch Elisa into a protective embrace.

"Goliath, what…" Elisa began but Goliath cut her off with an explanation;

"I recognize that voice."

He looked down at the stirring being from the sky, and as Elisa followed his gaze, her eyes widened.

It was Demona.

Or rather, it was what was left of Demona.

Her wings had been crudely severed, her arms legs, and tail were likewise missing, all of the severed appendages ending in crudely hacked stumps, trailing crude bits of wire, cable and circuitry that seemed to be wound into the flesh itself. Her hair, once a proud shade of bright red, was filthy, wound into crude dread locks dyed in black and yellow.

"Mother!" Angela shouted, trying to rush to Demona's broken body, but Broadway lurched forward and grabbed her arm,

"Be careful!" the portly gargoyles cautioned, "She could be up to somethi…"

"I don't care what _could_ be, she _is_ badly injured." Angela shot back, shrugging off Broadways hand, "And she needs help." she added, firmly. She sent a glare at Brooklyn who had started to step forward to stop her after se slipped away from Broadway, and stormed over to her mother's side.

Surprising all of them, Elisa ducked out from behind Goliath and joined her step-daughter.

"Angela, I know this is your mother, but Broadway was right, we do have to be careful. There's no telling what she's been through, or what state of mind she'll be in when she wakes up."

Angela bristled a bit to her mother spoken of in such a way, but Elisa went on,

"But she is hurt, badly. And she needs our help." the detective declared, glaring up at a specific member of the clan, anticipating his protests.

Sure enough, Brooklyn growled and declared;

"She'll be fine. That friggin' spell the Wyrd Sisters put on her will knit her back together and she'll be back up and trying to take our heads off in no time." the crimson gargoyles declared, dismissing Elisa and Angela's concern with a wave of his hand.

"Uh, no it's not." Lexington pointed out, "At least not very quickly."

"What do you mean?" Goliath asked, stepping forward to stand at Elisa's side; nominally to examine Demona wounds, but more than likely to make sure he kept himself between her and his beloved.

"Her…wounds. They're not healing." Lexington explained, kneeling down next to Angela and pointing a talon to show what he meant; the ragged stumps of flesh were not knitting themselves back together as they would normally under the effects of the spell of immortality she was under.

Angela suddenly looked even more worried, and Elisa narrowed her eyes as she looked closely at the ragged edges of bones; they were, in point of fact healing. But the ragged edges had been cauterized shut by some unimaginable heat source, and the crisped parts were slowly mending, which meant…

"We're going to need a doctor." Elisa said, quietly, just before most the immortal woman's femoral arteries knitted themselves back together, and a spray of blood erupted from the newly reconstructed blood vessels.

**Several Hundred Light-years Away, Near the Edge Of The Solar System**

It would be worth comparing the form of the first alien invaders to reach earth with their fictional counterparts imagined by the various denizens of that insignificant ball of mud before the terrifying reality that they were most emphatically *not* alone on the galaxy was driven home so bloodily. There was, of course, the insidious invader, out for resources, conquest or as was far too often case in the fevered sub conscious of a great many lonely individuals in the latter half of the twentieth century, breeding stock. There was also the great destroyer, out to annihilate the planet's inhabitants for reasons that were never quite made clear and on the opposite end of the spectrum, the bringers of knowledge, peaceful creatures from the stars out to right the worlds wrongs; this last one being somewhat rarer than the others, as it never did seem to sell very well.

There were of course, others, but since a great many of them were thought up by the aforementioned lonely individuals, I won't go into detail.

But even among these different themes there were a few unifying tropes, most notably the alien superiority in technology, most naturally, of course, their space craft.

The time and effort put into fantasies of spacecraft is staggering, going so far as to include technical diagrams, blueprints and detailed models (the lonely individuals again).

Flying saucers and TIE fighters, Rockets Ships and Battelstars, Romulan Warbirds and Improbability Spheres; the list seems never ending.

So it would probably come as a shock and bit of a let down to those generations of dreamers if they were to catch a glimpse of the oblong monstrosity that suddenly appeared just beyond Pluto.

Owing more to Escher and Goldberg then Heinlein or Roddenberry, it was not one ship, but many, a ramshackle, nightmare collection of wrecked warships, derelict freighters and alien ghost ships, collided together with asteroids, meteorites and simple space junk as they all drifted aimlessly through a realm so far off and terrible, the galaxy had, as yet, no terms for it. Similarly humanity or, for that matter, the other inhabitants of earth, had no terms with which to names the construct that had until recently never graced even their wildest nightmares. But, several tens of thousands of years into the future, the administrators of the Imperium of Man have a title for objects such as the one in question, one that is both equally descriptive and ominous sounding too have been adopted by most the of the other space faring races of the 41st millennium; Space Hulk.

Thousands drift through the galaxy, directionless, appearing in and out of real space as they drift through the warp, while others simply hang in the void, moving so slowly they seem frozen in time.

However, many of these constructs, despite their decrepit appearance, are anything but abandoned.

Deep within the twisted corridors and vaults of the hulk, a flickering hologram of the solar system danced upwards from a projector in what had once been the command deck of an Imperial battleship, but now formed the heart of the hulk.

Standing over it, a seven foot tall behemoth, clad in a massive set of royal blue armor, inscribed with scriptures, symbols, and heraldry that made eyes burn when gazed upon, and trimmed with red-tinted gold stood over the projection.

"There. She's there!" the armored figure declared, indicating the third planet from the sun. It turned its helmeted head; the gold inlaid wings jutting form the sides of the power armor helm lending a ponderous air to the movement.

Absentmindedly, the armored figure moved one gauntleted hand down to touch the heavy chains wound across its chest, left arm and right leg, as if he wore anticipating the vicious tug they were about to receive.

The chains yanked taught so savagely they sent the armored being sprawling to the deck plates in a clatter of armor plate.

"You's gonna 'ave ta' be more specific 'den 'dat, humie…"

"As you wish." the heavily armored being growled, before manipulating a few controls on a console that stood next to the hologram projector.

The planet magnified and spread itself out into a flat, two-dimensional projection of continents and oceans. The blue armored figure stared at the projection for a few moments before starting a low, muttered chant. The air on the ancient warships command deck grew stale, and then cold. Black mists swirled around the armored man, down his arms and finally, his arms jerked awkwardly up and the oily fog swept from his finger tips to swirl through the air in a perfectly straight line; a line that ended on a small island of the northeast coast of the smaller continent.

"There." The blue armored figure declared, his voice echoing with a berserk gibberish after each word, "The one you seek is there, amongst those she considers to be enemies. They have in their clutches, locked away in a tower." the figure, or at the least whatever energies he was using to project his powers, seemed to find that hysterical.

The beast holding the armored ones leash did not seem to be amused, however, and let loose with a flurry of booming shots from a crude pistol to demonstrate that point.

Something screamed in panicked outrage, and air in the room suddenly returned to its normal, humid state and the black mist disappeared as suddenly as it had materialized.

"So you're sure 'about 'dat being da place, Chaos boy?"

"I swear by Tzeentch and by the Thousand Sons Legion that this is the location you seek, greenskin."

The beast holding the chain's lead stepped forward, looming even higher than the chaos sorcerer, impossibly muscled, clothed in coarse leather garments and rusted plates of armor. Its leathery green skin was crisscrossed with scars and pockmarks, its long face was framed by shaply pointed ears and its deep set eyes glowed a malevolent red. The monster sneered, top lip curling above its lantern jaw and maw of pointed fangs. It ran the taloned fingers of its left hand through the holo-projection, before idly clasping them over the flickering shape of the island the sorcerer had indicated.

"Well,'den 'der ain't no more use for you, is 'der?" the monster suddenly asked.

The chaos marine's eyes widened beneath his helms visor,

"The warp will bring my vengeance on you, foul xe…" he started to shout,

but the words died in his throat as a pair of massive pincer-like blades ripped through the heavy ceramite back-plate of his armor and tore straight through his chest.

The beast roared in triumph as it hoisted the still twitching chaos warrior on his powerklaw high above its head.

"Alright lads!" The creature roared, swinging his right arm down and out and casting the Thousands Sons sorcerer down unto the pitted deckplates. The monster strode over to the edge of the bridge and gazed outwards, at the cavernous space the Orks had hollowed out in the middle of the space hulk, the ramshackle interior still bearing the ragged scars where they had crudely welded, blasted and ripped out the cluster of ships that made up the space hulk to make their lair,

"We's in da roight spot, and now we's gonna go get 'er!" The behemoth declared; simple, crude and direct as his kind always were, "She's got someone or somefing wiv 'er, but 'dat just means we gotta chance 'ta get stuck in, yeah?"

A shout of approval was raised, loud enough to make ears bleed as it rent the air,

"So's get ready ta go, boyz, 'cuz it's time fer some fun! Fire up da engines, get da kill-croozas ready, and…"

The monster didn't need to finish' the assembled horde knew the rest of the speech without it being spoken; a single word, they all knew it well. And they shouted it so loud their voices echoed up and down the bizarre, twisting corridors of the space hulk;

"WAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!"

It boggles the mind to wonder just how many planets had been wiped out, how many civilizations torn to pieces, how many lives had been ended after that simple, crude and direct warcry had been made.

Simple.

Crude.

Direct.

The Orks always were.


End file.
